


Pizza Night

by TheExplorer



Category: Battleborn (Video Game)
Genre: Crack, Do not expect the characterization to be that accurate, Food Fight, Gen, This whole thing is a shitpost I finished at 2am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 20:24:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7188797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplorer/pseuds/TheExplorer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Kleese’s turn to cook on the Nova, and he’s managed to discover that oregano has a very peculiar effect on the Jennerit. (Based on conversations with leaddyborn and dreadwind on tumblr that oregano is like catnip for the Jennerit. I wrote this at 2am, the characterization is probably awful, but it's basically crack so I'm just posting it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pizza Night

Each night, the battleborn took turns cooking for each other on board Nova. This often produced some rather interesting results, as the different races have very different palettes and varying degrees of strong stomachs and definitions of what exactly ‘food’ means. Not everyone participated in kitchen duty, however- namely Orendi, who no one really trusted near the ovens. Tonight, however, it was Kleese’s turn to cook. He had been in the kitchen for quite some time, and the others were getting restless and more than a little but annoyed. Was the old man just that bad at cooking? For whatever reason, Kleese had kept the kitchen doors shut, even redirecting the vents so that those waiting in the dining area couldn’t even smell whatever it was he was cooking. Given it was Kleese, everyone was certain he was up to something. Phoebe had also joined Kleese to assist in preparing whatever the food was, due to her enthusiasm with knives.

After nearly an hour of waiting, it was a hungry and disgruntled Ghalt who stood up and hollered out to Kleese over his rumbling stomach. “Kleese! What’s taking so damn long in there? It’s been so long that I’m starting to look more like you, and Orendi is about to lose it here.”

“Oh, don’t worry, _Ghalt_ ,” came Kleese’s raspy voice from the kitchen. “Supper is right on its way, just a few moments…“ There was some mumbling, the crashing sound of something metallic being thrown carelessly aside, and finally the door opened. Out came Kleese in his battle throne, an apron covered in flour tied around his waist, followed by several robot minions carrying large plates of pizza. With a suspiciously wicked grin, Kleese raised his arms to everyone, proclaiming: “Enjoy, everyone! It’s _pizza night_!” With his signal, the minions delivered the pizzas onto the table in front of the hungry heroes. There was a delightful array of steaming hot pizzas, from all veggie to anchovy to Hawaiian to meat lover’s delight. There was even something that looked like oddly glowing mushrooms which Kleese assured was an Eldrid specialty. This was confirmed by Boldur, whose eyes lit up with delight before grabbing a large slice and stuffing it into his mouth. In fact, the variety of flavors quickly proved to be very popular among all the battleborn, with members of different factions finding shared interests in their favorite pizza toppings. Montana claimed at least two whole pizzas to himself, which thankfully Kleese had planned for. While Oscar Mike, Whiskey, and Alani recoiled at the sight of the anchovy pizza, Toby grinned sadistically and slid the pizza directly in front of him with his flipper.

But it was the reaction from the Jennerits that was most uh- interesting. The moment Kleese had entered the room with the aromatic dishes, Rath had sharply inhaled, his pupils dilating as he opened his mouth and bared his fangs to take in the smell more fully. There was a similar reaction from Deande and Ambra, but Rath’s more pronounced canines made his rather more obvious. Soon, there were obvious eye twitches and eyebrow twitches as the three Jennerits fought to restrain themselves. That smell, that spice- _oregano_. Seeing their struggle, Kleese’s smile spread up his face as wickedly as if he were the Grinch. Before making the meal, Kleese had come across an interesting tidbit of information on the Jennerit: for them, the spice oregano produced a similar effect to that of catnip in domestic cats. This led to a death-match staring contest, as the three, who were now red in the face, battled to see who could restrain themselves the longest.

The other battleborn were largely too busy stuffing their own faces to notice their three compatriots struggling to restrain themselves. That is, not until Rath lost it and aggressively tore off a slice of oregano-laden margherita pizza. Instead of eating it, he rubbed it all over his face, spreading red sauce and dark green spice flecks all over his face and into his hair.

Seeing her colleague fallen to temptation, Deande hissed at him, trying in vain to get him to control himself. “ _Control yourself, dammit!”_ But alas, it was too late. The great and powerful Verod Rath had tasted oregano, and there was no stopping his hunger for it now. Kleese was roaring with laughter, and Rath finally snapped completely. With a last longing look of apology to Deande, and a glare back at Kleese as he said through bared teeth: “ _How did you_ know?”, the bladekeeper gave in to the overbearing temptation. His pupils heavily dilated and a pitiful look of loss of control on his face, he slammed his face down into the pizza.

At this point, Kleese completely lost it, coughing up a fit in the midst of laughter as his hand held tightly to his stomach for support. The rest of the battleborn had now ceased chowing down as they had been, since their attention was rather more focused on the head of the table. Here, Rath had grabbed the entire tray of pizza, and was smothering his face in it as his long tongue licked violently at the sauce. Orendi saw this and, assuming that this was just something you _did_ , jumped up on the table and began rolling in and shoving her face into the pizza, all the while cackling with laughter and just plain screaming. It was now chaos, and Deande and Ambra were also quickly losing the strength to resist. It was Deande who then lost control, grabbing slices of pizza in both hands and stuffing them quite crassly into her mouth. Ambra was the longest to resist, but only by a few seconds. Soon, she too was grabbing the pizza and slathering it onto her face, as well as her chest and in fact _any bare skin_.

It was the moment when Rath jumped onto the table, tearing away his robes with a wild look in his eyes before flopping down and rolling in the pizzas on the table when the other with any sense make their escape. ISIC was laughing maniacally as usual, taking great delight in the chaos of the situation, even if he did hate the man who was at the root of the cause. Montana and Oscar Mike swiftly grabbed away the pizzas with their preferred toppings, running off before things got worse. Orendi continued to shout and cackle, rolling in the pizza as well, even going so far as to begin disintegrating the trays the pizzas came out on. Mellka simply lifted an eyebrow, watching Deande shove the pizza slices into her face as her tongue gathered the sauce. Ghalt tried to intervene, but was stopped from running to prevent Kleese’s getaway by a now half-naked Rath jumping down and screaming, his arms outstretched and holing his swords, which were all dripping with red pizza sauce.

To this day, the last footage that can be seen on Nova’s overhead camera monitor from that night is a vision of utter chaos: two Jennerits (and Orendi) piled and squirming on a table filled with pizza, sauce splattering all over the walls of the ship as Rath’s obsessed face can be seen for a blurry close-up on camera before he is tackled by Ghalt, quickly followed by a crash and static as the camera is knocked out.


End file.
